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(iSxH Congress i 
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I Document 
( No. 264 



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ATTITUDE OF THE UNITED STATES 
TOWARD MEXICO 



ADDRESS 

OF 

THE PRESIDENT OF THE 
UNITED STATES 

'"V DELIVERED BEFORE 

A PARTY OF EDITORS FROM THE REPUBLIC OF 

MEXICO AT THE WHITE HOUSE 

JUNE 7. 1918 




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SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 281. 

lii'l '<"■'»*'• l».v Mr. Smith, of Arizona. 

In the Senate of the United States, 

Juhj 10, 1918. 
Resolved^ Thiit thu addri'ss made by the President of the United 
States to the Mexican editors at the White Hou.se on June 7, 1918, be 
printed as a Senate document. 
Attest : 

,1 AMKs M. Bakek, Secretary. 



D. Of !)• 
AUG 24 1918 



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ATTITUDE OF THE UNITED STATES TOWARD MEXICO. 



Gentleun^ii. I h.iNe luner received a group of men who were more 
welfonie than you are, because it has been one of my distresses diiriiitr 
the period of my Presidency that the Mexican people did not more 
thoroughly understand the attitude of the United States toward 
Mexico, r think I can assure you. and I hope you have had every 
evitlence of the truth of my assurance, that that attitude is one of 
sincere friendship. And not merely the sort of friendshij) which 
promjits one not to do his neighbor any harm, bnt the sort of friend- 
ship Avhich earnestly desii-es to do his neighbor service. 

NO IMlillT TO INTKI:KKI{K in MKXICO's INTEKNAL AKKA[RS. 

My own policy, the policy of my own administration, toward 
Mexico was at every point based upon this principle, that tlie internal 
settlement of the affairs of Mexico was none of our Inisiness; that 
we had no right to interfere with or to dictate to Mexico in any 
I)articnlar with regard to her own atfairs. Take one aspect of oni' 
relations which at one time may have been difficult for you to under- 
stand : When we sent troo|)s into Mexico, our sincere desire was 
nothing else than to assist you to get rid of a man who was making 
the settlement of your atfairs for the time being impossible. We 
had no desire to use our troops for any other purpose, and I was in 
hopes that by assisting in that way and then immediately withdraw- 
ing I might give substantial proof of the truth of the assurances 
that I had given your Government through President C'arranza. 

EI-'FORTS SKKX XOW TO .AFAKK 'lUOl BI.E. 

And at the pi^^sent time it distresses me to learn that certain 
influences, which I assume to be German in their origin, are trying 
to make a wrong im])ression throughout Mexico as to the purposes 
of the Ignited States, and not only a wrong impression, but to give 
an absolutely untrue account of things tliat happen. You know the 
distressing things tliat have been ha])pening just off our coasts. You 
know of the \essels that ha^e been sunk. T yesterday received a 
quotation from a paper in Guadalajara which stated that IH of our 
battleships had lieen sunk olf the capes of (he Chesapeake- You see 
how dieadful" it is to have people so radically misinfoi-med. It was 
added that our Xavy Department was withholding the truth with 
regard to tlie.se sinkings. T havi' no df)ubt that the publisher of the 
})aper publislu'd that in ])erfect innocence without intending to con- 
vey wrong impressions, but it is evident that allegations of that sort 
])rocee(l from those who wish to make (r()ul)le between Mexico and 
the Ignited States. 



4 AHiii ni. til- rnK rMri;i) siaiks towakd mkxico. 

Now. geiitleiiieii, foi- the time being, at any rate — and I hope it will 
not be a short time — the influence of the United States is somewhat 
pervasive in the affairs of the world, and I believe that it is perva- 
sive because the nations of the world which are less powerful than 
some of the greatest nations are eo,ming to believe that our sinceri' 
desire is to do disinterested service. We are the champions of those 
nations wliich have not had a militar.y standing which would enable 
them to compete with the strongest nations in the world, and I look 
forward with pride to the time, which I hope will soon come, when 
\v«' can give substantial evidence, not only that Ave do not want any 
thing out ot this war. liut that we wotdd not accept anything out of 
it. that it i> al»sohitcly a case of disinterested action. And if j^ou 
will watch the attitude of our people, you will see that nothing stirs 
them so deeply as assurances that this war. so far as we are con- 
cerned, is for idealistic objects. One of the difficulties that I experi- 
t-nced during the first three j^ears of the war — the years when the 
United States was not in the war — was in getting the foreign offices 
of European nations to believe that the I'niied States was seeking 
nothing for herself, that her neutrality was not selfish, and that if 
she came in she would not come in to get anything substantial out of 
the war. any material object, any territory, or trade, or anything else 
of that sort. In some of the foreign offices there were men who per- 
sonally knew me and they believed. I hope, that I was sincere in as- 
suring them that our purposes were disinterested, but they thought 
that these assurances came from an academic gentleman removed 
from the ordinary sources of information and speaking the idealistic 
purposes ot the cloister. They did n(jt believe that I was speaking 
the real heart of the American people, and I knew all along that I 
was. Now I beliine that everybody who comes into contact with tlie 
American people knows that T am speaking their purposes. 

I!i:ki.I!i:n< K 'lo i;i ssi \ in i;i d ciuiss sim:k( ii. 

The (tthei- ni<ih! in New ^'ork. at the opening of the (•anii)nign for 
fund> foi- our Tve<l Cross. 1 made an address. I hail not inteniled to 
refer to Russia. I»iil I was speaking withont notes, and in the course 
of what I said my < w n thought was led t(> Russia. ;in<l 1 said that we 
ineant t(» stand by Russia just as firmly as we would stand by France 
or England or any other of the allies. The audience to which 1 was 
speakhig was not an audience from which 1 would have expected 
an enthusiastic response to that. 1\ was rather too well dressed. It 
was not an audience, in other w(»rds, made of the class of people 
whom voii w<iuld suppose to have the most intimate feeling for the 
sufferings of the ordinaiw man in Russia. l»ut that audience jumped 
into the aisles, the wlude audience ro-e to its feet, and nothing that 
1 hail said on that occasion aroust'd anything like the endiusiasm 
that that sinirh' -entence aroused. Xow. there is a sai\i]de. lientlemen. 
We can not make anything out <d' Ixussia. ^^'e can uol niake* any- 
thing out of slantling by Rnssi:i at thi>- lim<' the most remote of the 
European nation^, so far as we are coticerned. the one with whii-h 
we have hail the least conned ions in li'ade and advantage and yei 
the people of the United Stale>^.rose to that suggestion a^ to no other 
(iiat 1 madi- in tliat addre-s. TTlnd is the heart of America, and w»> 
are ready to show you by any act of friendshi|) ihal you uiay pro- 
pose our real feelings tovvard Mexic(K 



ATTITUDE OF THE rXITEl* STATES TOWAKD MEXICO. £) 

WON'T TAKE ADVANTAGE OK NEIGHKOK. 

i^oine of us. if I may say so privately, look back with regret upon 
some of the more ancient relations that we have had with Mexico 
lonir before our generation; and America, if I may so express it. 
would now feel ashamed to take advantage of a neighlxu-. So I hope 
that you can carry back to your homes something better than the 
assurances of words. You have had contact with oui' jieoi^le. You 
know your own i)ersonal reception. You know how gladly we have 
opened to yon the doors of every establishnu'ut that you wanted to 
see and have shown you just Avhat we w(M-e doiug. and I hope you 
have gained the right impression as to why we were doing it. We 
are doing it. gentlemen, so that the world may never hereafter have 
to fear the only tiling that any nation has to dread — the unjust and 
selfish aggression of another nation. Some time ago. as you prob- 
ably all know. T jirojiosed a sort of Pan Auierican agreement. I had 
})erceived that one of the difficulties of our relationship with Latin 
Auierica was this: The famous Monroe doctrine was ado]jted with- 
out your consent, without the consent of any of the Central or South 
American States. 

I If I ma}' express it in the terms that we so often use in this coun- 
' try, Ave said, " We are going to be your big brother, whether you want 
us to be or not." We did not ask whether it was agreeable to you 
that we should be your big brother. We said we were going to be. 
XoAv. that was all very well so far as protecting you from aggression 
from the other side of the water was concerned, but there was noth- 
ing in it that protected you from aggression from us, and I have 
repeatedly seen the uneasy feeling on the part of representatives of 
the States of Central and South America that our self-appointed 
protection might be for our own benefit and our own interests and 
jiot for the interest of our neighbors. So I said, " Verj^ well, let us 
]nake an arrangement by which we will give bond. Let us have a 
common guarantee, that all of ns will sign, of political independence 
and t£nitoinal integrity. Let us agree that if any one of us, the 
United States~mcluded. violates the politifcal independence or the 
territorial integrity of any of the others, all the others will jump on 
her. I pointed out to some of the gentlemen who were less inclined 
to enter into this arrangement than others that that was in effect 
giving bonds on the part of the United States that we would enter 
into an arrangement by which you Avould be protected from us. 

Now. that is the kind of agreement that will have to be the foun- 
dation of the future life of the nations of the world, gentlemen. 
The whole family of nations will have to guarantee to each nation 
that no nation shall violate its political independence or its terri- 
torial integi'it.y. That is the basis, the only conceivable basis, for the 
future peace of the world, and I must -admit that I was ambitious 
to have the States of the two continents of America show the way 
to the rest of the world as to how to make a basis of peace. Peace 
can come only by trust. As long as there is suspicion there is going 
to be misunderstanding, and as long as there is misunderstanding 
there is going to be trouble. If you can once get a situation of trust, 
then you have got a situation of permanent peace. Therefore, every- 
(me of us. it seems to me, owes it as a patriotic duty to his own coun- 
try to plant the seeds of trust and of confidence instead of the seeds 



ATTITL'DK oy THK LXlTElt STATES TOWARD MEXICO. 

uf sii.spkion anil variety of inttrest. Thut is the reason that I begun 
u\ >aynig to you that 1 have not had the pleasure of meeting a 
group iti men who were more welcome than you are. because you are 
our near neighbors. .Suspicion on your part or misunderstanding on 
your part ilistresses us more than we would be distres^^ed by similar 
fei'ling> on the part of those Ic-s near by. 

When you letlect how womlerful a storehouse of treasure Mexico 
i>. ynu can see how lier future nujst depend upon peace and honor, so 
that noboily shall expktit her. It mu^t depend upon every nation 
that liav any lel.itions with her, and the citizens of any nation that 
ha- relation^ with her, keeping within the bounds of honor and fair 
dealing and justice, l)ecause so ^oon a» you can admit your own capi- 
tal and the capital of the world to the free use of the resources of 
Mexico, it will be one of the mo^^t w(mderfully rich and prosperous 
eouniries in the world. And when you have the foundations of 
e>tabli>hed onler, and the worUI has come to its ^enses again, we 
shall. I hope, have the very best connecticms that will assure us all a 
permanent cttrdiality and friendship. 



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